This proposal on life-span development requests renewal of support (two years) for a longitudinal investigation of family change and parent-child interaction in the life course. The study's life-span perspective and design are based on the premise that parental behavior is shaped over time by the reciprocal interactions of mother, father, and child, and that family interactions are influenced by a changing social and economic order. Parents are viewed as models through social and economic roles, as central figures in child rearing, and as significant others is the composition and tasks of households. Data for the research come from two-well known archives of longitudinal data, the Oakland Growth Study and the Berkeley Guidance Study at the Institute of Human Development, Berkeley. Building upon the Oakland research in Children of the Great Depression (1974), Phase I of the project (funded by NSF, 8/1/82-7/31/83) entails construction of measurement and causal models that represent family change and parent-child interaction over ten years of the Berkeley study, the 1930s. During this year new coding of parental behavior in the Berkeley and Oakland studies will be carried out at the Institute of Human Development (Dr. Marjorie Honzik, PI). As outlined in this proposal, the first part of Phase II is designed to extend analysis from Phase I by applying the models to family change and developmental patterns in the Berkeley and Oakland studies, a comparative analysis that uses the new parent ratings. The second part of Phase II investigates the utility of the family models as explanatory linkages between economic deprivation in the 1930s and life outcomes from late adolescence to the middle years. These life domains include assessments of self-adequacy in adolescence, the transition to adulthood and career establishment, and mid-life social status, values, and health. The proposed analysis represents a first effort to model parent-child interactions in relation to a changing family environment, and to assess the influence of these patterns within the life course of two cohorts.